Litchfield board of education wants to bring back lifestyle survey

LITCHFIELD>> The Board of Education strongly expressed its wishes to bring back the Profiles of Student Life survey in a regular meeting Wednesday night. The Housatonic Valley Coalition against Substance Abuse (HVCASA), the survey provider, said it wasn’t the right time to do the survey based on the community feedback, while the majority of the board members think this is the time.

Board member Wayne Shuhi said it’s the absolute time to start being more aggressive to move forward with the preventative measures. He suggests the board should find better people to conduct the survey and gather data of potential problems.

Board member John Bongiorno said it was HVCASA that dropped the ball, and he was upset with the organization which received a state grant but had never came to a public meeting to explain what the survey does.

“It’s 80 versus 20. Eighty percent of the people want to do the survey. You can’t do that with something as important as this,” Bongiorno said, “It’s a done deal because they bailed.”

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Board member Elizabeth Fabbri said the survey is also to find out the mental health problems of adolescents, which often overlap with substance abuse. The board agreed that the more information is available, the more effective it will be to help students and families to address their needs.

The Prevention Council has voted 6 to 1 in favor of bringing police dogs to search for drugs in school. But the council had voted against the lifestyle survey earlier. Chair Frank Simone said it’s necessary to work with the Prevention Council and let them know the education board wants to do the survey. The next step will be to find out what are the best ways to move forward on the issue.

In a regular meeting of the Prevention Council Tuesday night, Litchfield police officer Gregory Kenney said he has seen the age of drug users getting younger and younger. In the last 17 months, he said the youngest person he saw using heroin in Litchfield was a 14-year-old, and the youngest age with marijuana was 12. Kenney said marijuana is very prominent in the town. Litchfield’s drug problem may not be as bad as Torrington, Kenney added, but it is probably worse than some surrounding towns.

“We have young people at school actively using heroin, some other students actively using marijuana,” Kenney said, “We have people in Litchfield that are actively involved and using drugs.”

Drug use of youth is a problem of all angles, Kenney said, the biggest thing he found in his 36 years of service is the changing demographics of American families. The increase of single-parent family — parents separated, divorced and two-income families leaves students unattended, and students have more idle time. Kenney said it takes a community effort to help their youth.

“Law enforcement can’t do it all,” Kenney said, “In Litchfield, there are two of us, and how many square miles, how many roads...Mom and dad need to step up. Other support needs to step up.”

About the Author

Shako Liu covers the towns of Litchfield, Warren, Goshen and Morris for The Register Citizen and Litchfield County Times. Reach the author at sliu@registercitizen.com
or follow Shako on Twitter: shako_liu.